Google to launch Music Beta cloud music service today at I/O

Google is expected to announce its long anticipated entrance into cloud-based music on Tuesday from its Google I/O conference in San Francisco. The New York Times reports that the service will initially be called Music Beta by Google, and it will allow users to store 20,000 songs in a cloud locker for free, which can then be accessed by any PC or Android device. Activity will be synced automatically between devices, so playlists created on one device will be accessible from all others, according to the report. Like Amazon’s recent Cloud Drive and Cloud Player offerings, it is expected that Google will launch its service without the support of major record labels. Also like Amazon’s offering, the service is expected to initially be very limited in functionality. In the beginning, Music Beta will reportedly be accessible by invite only. Motorola XOOM users with Verizon Wireless models will all receive invitations, and others will be able to sign up for invites at music.google.com. There is currently no timeline in terms of when the service might become available to the general public. We’ll be on hand reporting live from I/O later today, so be sure to tune in for all the latest news as it breaks.

I like the idea of virtual music storage. I also like the idea of no major label support. I just want to access all my music, from anywhere, using my choice of device. Screw buying music via a subscription service like iTunes.

Anonymous

I already have it and have done for a while, it’s called a Windows Home Server. No subs, no reliance on anyone else and I can do video and docs too all to any PC or most phones.

edoug

Kinda weird that Google would release something to the public as a “beta”! That’s cool though -gives us “normal” people a chance to peak at something that will probably be pretty awesome once it’s finished.

Anonymous

gmail was in beta for how long and open to public? this isn’t goog’s first rodeo

Poor Google! On the opening day of their little conference Microsoft and Skype steal headlines with their deal.

Anonymous

I really like the idea of streaming my whole music collection, but I really don’t like the idea of drastically reduced battery life, drastically reduced speed of changing tracks, even more commonplace data caps, and (possibly) reduced bitrate quality compared to local storage. Plus I still have to maintain TWO libraries (cloud, local) as some devices around the house simply aren’t going to be compatible with this and I sure don’t want to rely on Google to keep my only copy of music I spend a long time ripping.